Uchoten Kazoku Episode 8 Anime Review

Propagator of idiot blood.

Animes which start off funny and then turn sad always punches you in the gut much harder than an all-out bawl fest. Watching the brothers rally around their mother, and their Professor, watching them work as a team during the Fire Festival. All the happiness condensed into how much we care about the tanuki family. The water droplets became too heavy and flowed in this episode.

We started off the episode with the confrontation with Yajiro at the well. Frogs can’t cry, so the director artistically made the dew drop splash down onto Froggy’s head. You can hear the despair in Yaichiro’s voice actor as he questioned his brother about their father’s death. Wanting to know and not really at the same time.

Strangely enough, Yasaburo kept quiet about what he had heard from the Friday Fellows man. How his father accepted his death. I suppose that wasn’t the time? But I’m hoping he’ll say something eventually.

We find out Froggy is in love with Yasaburo’s fiance, Kaisei, who we haven’t seen yet. I guess that might be another reason Benten is sad. Yasaburo’s betrothed to someone else. And it’s been said throughout the series that humans and tanuki can’t be together. Father tanuki doesn’t want Yajiro to leave because he wants the brothers to stay together.

We see by episode’s end that Yasaburo has grasped onto why his father died. Probably… because of his experience with his split with his brother, Soichiro didn’t want to see the same thing happen to his sons. Love is such a touchy thing. He wanted the bonds of brotherly love to be stronger between his sons than what Yajiro felt for Kaisei. So, he chose to die to unite the family. He’s really a tanuki cunning enough to cheat tengus. Yajiro would, of course, feel indebted to his family from then on, and give way to his brother. He felt so guilty he locked himself away.

Possibly, Father tanuki was also thinking about tanuki society, which he worked so hard to unite. If any of the brothers left, it would be harder to keep it together. The scene where he drank with Prof showed that he was really at peace, and it wasn’t just all an act when he was in the cage.

By the way, I really loved the tanuki carriage Prof was sitting in. It’s powered by motor at the bottom of the man in front, and it’s enchanted. When the Prof turned around to look at the lady’s non-exposed bossom, the man turned as well.

We cut to back home and we see that the oldest tanuki brother Yaichiro was crying because he understood how his brother felt. Imagine having the burden and guilt that you killed your father falling on your shoulders your whole life, then forcibly annexing yourself from your family. I wonder if Yajiro knows that his father died to keep his family together or if he guessed that it was an accident he got caught.

Well, either way, Yajiro is responsible in some small measure and he feels it’s all his fault. And I’m guessing he knows it’s because of his feelings for Kaisei which triggered this. So, he can’t be with the girl he loves and his father is dead.